Team directors back to school next week

As it announced in August, the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) Academy starts its management training programme for director sportifs next week.

According to the press release that announced the scheme in August: ”The programme has been developed by the UCI Academy under the UCI ProTour quality label, with the objective of promoting the universal development of high-level cycling. The aim of the programme is to reinforce the professionalism and quality of the management of teams by improving the skills of Directors Sportifs.”

The training programme will focus on improving Directors’ knowledge of a number of aspects of the sport, focusing on the many sporting, technical and anti-doping regulations. It will also cover many areas of team management such as human resources, activity supervision and budget control/

"Next week, 25 Director Sportifs from UCI ProTeams and UCI Pro Continental Teams will take part in the first Director Sportif programme at the World Cycling Centre,” said UCI ProTour Manager Alain Rumpf. “This constitutes a key step in the improvement of the quality of professional cycling worldwide, one of the goals pursued by the UCI ProTour since 2005. Ultimately, anyone who wishes to become a Director Sportif will have to be in possession of this diploma.”

This regulation will come in to force by 2013 for UCI ProTeams and 2015 for UCI Professional Continental Teams.

“We were confident that this new and exciting programme would be well received by the UCI ProTeams,” said programme manager Michael Cary. “It has been developed with a large amount of industry input so that it addresses real requirements and issues faced by the Director Sportifs today. We are pleased with the response to date and look forward to welcoming the Director Sportifs to the World Cycling Centre and delivering this exciting initiative next week.”